This item at this price, sold by Amazon.com, is currently reserved exclusively for Prime members.

Prime free trial and invitee customers: We will automatically apply an Amazon.com Gift Card to your Gift Card Balance in the amount equal to the Prime exclusive discount after you become a paid Prime member. If you cancel your paid Prime membership or return the qualifying smartphone within the first 3 months of your paid Prime membership, we may void your Gift Card or charge you in the amount of the Gift Card. Terms and Conditions apply.

Get a $80.00 Amazon.com Gift Card when you become a paid Prime member.
Details

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com exclusively for Prime members.
Details

Instant and exclusive access

High quality photos that stand out

Take high quality photos ready to share with the 12 MP large pixel rear camera with dual-tone flash and 8 MP front camera with flash. Stand out in social media feeds with fun new camera features that make your photos pop.

Powerful and efficient

The octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 powers the premium experiences of the IDOL 5S, so users can enjoy a superior performance, faster response times and fast connectivity coupled with outstanding battery life with the 2620 mAh battery that effectively puts in the hours.

Updated OS with Google Assistant

The IDOL 5S runs the Android 7.1 Nougat OS. Multi-task more efficiently with two windows open at once with Split Screen View, and experience your own personal Google with Google Assistant. Schedule appointments, shuffle your playlist, send messages and much more, activated simply by saying “Ok Google”.

Effortless access to Amazon

Popular pre-installed Amazon apps allow quick access to your content, order history, wish list, shipment updates, and more. Plus, shop a personalized selection of daily deals right from the home screen.

Prime benefits everywhere you go

A single sign-on experience provides Prime members with instant access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, over one million songs, unlimited photo storage and backup, free 2-day shipping, and more.

Discover more with lockscreen offers and ads

Personalized deals and product recommendations appear on the phone’s lockscreen while providing full access to personal notifications.

What is an unlocked phone?

An unlocked phone is a device that is not bound to any carrier or plan. It allows you to choose your phone first and your carrier second. Upon selecting a plan, simply insert the carrier's SIM card into the phone and you're ready to go. If you decide you want to change carriers down the road or want to take an international trip, it's as simple as replacing your existing SIM card with a new SIM and activating your new plan.

What are the benefits of an unlocked phone?

Freedom: Choose the carrier with the best service or price. If you find a better deal later, you have the ability to change to a different carrier.

Travel: Take your phone internationally and use the carrier of your choice. It's as easy as inserting an active SIM card.

Selection: Choose the phone with the features you want, whether or not your carrier sells it, and get more service options without a contract.

How do I set up my unlocked phone?

The first thing you’ll need is a SIM card for your desired carrier. When activated, the SIM card will let your phone connect to your carrier’s network. If you decide to upgrade to a newer unlocked phone in the future, you can easily remove the SIM card from your old phone and put it in your new phone—just make sure you get the right size of SIM card (nano, micro, or standard) for your phone. If you want to use your phone while traveling internationally, you can easily buy a SIM card for a carrier that operates where you’re traveling. As long as it’s activated, you can just swap SIM cards when you arrive at your destination.

I have been the owner of the previous iterations of the Idol line from Alcatel. It started with the Idol 3, then last year I picked up the Idol 4s, and later I also got the Idol 4. The Alcatel Idol line has always been exciting for me for the features that it offers at a very reasonable price point. Last year Alcatel stepped it up and included a bunch of accessories (especially with the Idol 4s), but this year they went more towards the budget market and went bare bones in the box. I have only been using the phone for 3 days so far, but here are my thoughts up to this point:

Build Quality: 4.3/5 - I like the look and feel of the Idol 5s this year. It is very similar to the Idol 4 from last year, but they did move the location of some of the buttons and ports (the shell of the phone is identical though). The glass and metal combine for an appealing look, one that looks more expensive than the phone actually is. My biggest complaint here is that there are some pretty massive bezels at the top and the bottom of the phone that feel like they could have been filled with a longer screen (though I recognize that this could cause the price to increase).

Screen: 4.5/5 - The 5.2" 1080P screen on the Idol 5s looks great and gets quite bright. You should no issues seeing it in the brightest of lights. My only complaint here would be that I wish they would have gone with a 5.5" screen like the Idol 4s had.

Performance: 4.8/5 - In some ways Alcatel actually downgraded the processor on this phone vs. last years phone, but I am sort of glad that they did. In my use the Snapdragon 625 processor that is used in this phone is not only relatively snappy, but it is also quite efficient as well. So far the phone has been able to handle everything that I've thrown at it with no hiccups. Gaming performance will be great for just about all games except the absolute heaviest graphic intensive games, and even those will still play fine. The 625 processor is combined with 3gb of RAM, which gives you a decent amount of multitasking capabilities.

Battery Life: 4.1/5 - The 625 is a great processor for efficiency, but unfortunately Alcatel skimped on the battery size this year. The 5s has a 2620 mAH battery, which so far has been able to give me just over 4 hours of screen on time. For an average user that will get you through a full day. For me, I am plugging it in late at night with around 10-15% battery. It can make it through a full day, but I find myself having to stretch it out to get it there. They don't mention this anywhere, but this does also have QuickCharge 2.0 speeds for faster charging.

Software: 5/5 - This is running the most recent version of Android (7.1.1), and the software is darn near stock. Alcatel included a number of features in the software that are quite useful, my favorite of which are the fingerprint scanner gestures (see the attached video).

Cameras: 4.6/5 - The cameras on the Idol 5s seem right on par with those from the Idol 4, which is to say that they are actually quite good in my experience. When taking lower light photos the camera tends to over brighten the colors a bit, but it takes significantly better low-light pictures than most phones at this price point (the Honor 6x is probably the best though).

Speakers: 4.8/5 - The speakers aren't JBL tuned this year, but they are still very loud and pleasant. They aren't the loudest or the best I've heard, but they are still quite good for a cell phone.

Would I recommend this to friends and family? Tough call. I would personally encourage them to get a Moto G5 Plus over this phone, but none-the-less, this phone still is a solid option, I just wish they would have included a larger battery.

Did a bit of research once I saw that this was going to be sold on prime day and it's pretty good so far. It's running hardware that's comparable to specs you'd find early last year, but it's $200. I bought the version that came with ads, so far what I've noticed is: you will either get a full lock screen ad (so far I've gotten kindle and two different prime day ads, the pictures are usually tasteful but pretty bright) or if you have notifications you'll get 1 notification flier that's an ad (same size as all other notification fliers, or at least roughly the same). It preinstalls Amazon apps and you cannot uninstall them so basically the same bloatware you'd get from Apple/Samsung/Google but Amazon instead (but there's no forced flipboard or google calendar/search so it actually feels more lightweight to me).

For me, the ads are not intrusive, it's not noticeable except on unlock but I don't care about my lock screen at all, if you do care about having a nice lock screen picture I'd say consider other phone/non-ad version. It's worth noting that you can remove the ads and pay the $80 at any time from your account settings if you really don't like it.

Overall experience is very positive, phone looks great and feels good to use, hoping to keep this as my primary phone for a few years.

Is this a 5/5 phone out of all phones in 2017? No, there are phones at higher spec. At the $200 price point, is this a 5/5 phone? Yes, in my opinion, you are getting way more than 1/3 the price and then some. I did not want to pay $600+ for a phone and this has exceeded my expectations.

Worth noting, the other review mentioned the sim card tray being a bit hard to balance -- it's true, but if you make sure to hold your sim card in place when you're inserting it in, especially when it's about half in, you shouldn't have too much trouble.

1 month edit: After owning the phone for 1 month, I haven't changed my opinion on it. With all the apps and crap I installed it still runs well, battery easily lasts through a whole day, and it charges fast. I did notice it getting a bit hot when I'm playing a game on it but it's not anywhere near scalding, or even bothersome.

I have had this phone for a few weeks now and I have to say I'm impressed. In the budget to mid-range phone market this is the one to buy. I have had the Blu vivo 5r, Blu life one x, Moto g 5 plus, and several Blu R1 hd. This phone tops all of those by far. I also have an iPhone 7 as a work phone, and to me this Idol 5s is just as capable as the iPhone. Anyone looking for a solid phone at a reasonable price should get this phone. It just seems to do everything well. I added a 32gb samsung card and love it.

Cons:-sim card/sd card slot is poorly designed and hard to use. You have to balance both card on a piece of metal and then slide into place and have to turn on the phone to find out if it went in right (took me two tries)-no easy access to the battery-battery seems to drain relatively quickly-phone gets hot if using extensively while charging